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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26904745">Aftermath</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lodessa/pseuds/lodessa'>lodessa</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Trek: Discovery</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Comfort Sex, Complicated Relationships, Deception, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Messy, Oral Sex, Retrospective, Sexual Content, Spanking, Trauma</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 23:29:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,309</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26904745</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lodessa/pseuds/lodessa</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After the destruction of the Buran, Katrina Cornwell rushed to see her old friend Gabriel.  Now that she knows what really happened that day, she sees what occurred between them very differently than she did at the time.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Katrina Cornwell/Gabriel Lorca | Mirror Gabriel Lorca</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Aftermath</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a messy idea I have had rolling around in my head for a long time, hopefully I'm not the only person who enjoys it.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Katrina feels the bile rising up in her throat, swallows hard, reminds herself that the environmental controls on board the Discovery have not suddenly gone haywire and raised the temperature from temperate to broling despite the protests of her body.  </p><p>She didn’t think it was possible really, not after everything else that has happened, not after the way the numbness set in months ago.  Dead, alive, destroyed, betrayed… surely all of her receptors were burnt out beyond response by now.  Yet there is no denying the physical response she had barely managed to keep a lid on in front of the ship’s crew, in front of Sarek.</p><p><i>I should have realized. I should have seen it,</i> she can’t help thinking.</p><p><i>You did see it</i>, another part of herself hisses, <i>You just convinced yourself it was something else.  You wanted to believe it was something else.</i></p>
<hr/><p>“I know you’re in there, Gabriel.  Open up before I call a whole team down here to do an official welfare check on you.  Don’t think I won’t.”</p><p>The door slid open, though he didn’t respond verbally to her threat.  Inside was dark, blindingly so in comparison to the brightness of the corridor.  </p><p>“Lights-” she began but he cut her off.</p><p>“Don’t,” his voice was a hoarse warning.</p><p>“Why?” she asked, following the sound into the sleeping area of the temporary quarters he’d been assigned, “Oh right, because you checked out against medical advice without letting them fix the damage to your eyes. Real smart, Gabriel.”</p><p>Her eyes adjusted enough to see his silhouette, braced against the wall, a bottle of what was surely whiskey in one hand, the other with its palm outstretched against the surface of the mirror.</p><p>“If you’re here to try to drag me back to medical, forget it.”</p><p>“Is that any way to talk to a friend who travelled halfway across the quadrant through a war zone to see you when I heard what happened with the Buran?” she shook her head, crossing the room and reaching out to press one hand against his shoulder.</p><p>“Is that why you are here?” he asked, turning around to face her, eyes accusatory. They look almost black in the darkness, “As a friend?”</p><p>“I know you like to pretend like you don’t need anyone,” she shook her head, lifting her hands to cup his face, drinking in the sight of him, alive and mostly in one piece, at least physically, as her eyes continued to adjust. “So we can attribute this little visit to my emotional needs and pretend you don’t have any.”</p><p>It was only partly untrue. When she had heard about the Buran she’d feared the worst, feared she would never see his face again.  She needed to see him, to touch him, to assure herself that Gabriel Lorca hadn’t been obliterated with his ship.</p><p>“Kat…” he hesitated, turning his face away.  That was not a good sign, she’d anticipated him reacting to her half joke: chuckle, shake his head, do something.</p><p>It was evidently worse than she had expected.  She’d expected Gabriel to pretend like he wasn’t affected by the loss of his entire crew, by the choices he’d had to make.  She’d expected bravado and instead he was hiding in the dark.</p><p>“We don’t have to talk,” she offered, moving one finger from his jaw to graze across his lips and the other to pry the bottle out of his hand and set it aside.</p><p>There was one surefire way to lower Gabriel’s emotional containment fields, to unblock the conduits to confessional courage.   Nobody knew that better than Katrina.</p><p><i>Nobody enjoys that more than you</i> she made herself own, grabbing hold of the front of his uniform and tugging him towards her. She’d come there to drink him in as much as to be there for him.</p><p>His hands were rough as he met her kiss with a ferocity she couldn’t remember him ever having before.  Usually this started with laughter, with that boyish twinkle in his eyes, but this time he invaded her mouth like it was an enemy outpost.  He spun her around and pressed her against the wall, squeezing her breasts with both hands, one of his legs urging hers apart and the beginnings of his arousal poking against her thigh through their uniforms.</p><p>She grabbed hold of his backside, meeting his tongue with her own, getting lost in the familiar taste and scent of him and the unfamiliar forcefulness of his movements.  </p><p>But then, as abruptly as he had begun, Gabriel pulled away, dropped his hands, retreated from her mouth.</p><p>“I shouldn’t…” he trailed off, his pupils tiny slivers despite the dimness of the room. </p><p>That too, was new. Gabriel wasn’t one to be conflicted, about anything, and definitely not about seizing a moment of pleasure when it came his way.</p><p>First overzealous and then recalcitrant, it was a good thing she’d come.  No one else would see past his performance.  No one else would care as long as he got results, not with how badly the war was going.</p><p>So she had to be the one to question it.  Why this? Why now?  It took her a moment to have any idea why he might be behaving this way, but when she thought of a reason it broke her heart.</p><p>“Oh,” she hazarded, “Let me guess. You feel bad about surviving instead of going down with your ship so you are going to punish yourself.”</p><p>She expected him to deny it, to deflect.  He didn’t.  Instead, he said nothing and avoided her gaze, again acting unlike himself. It frustrated her. Frankly, it scared her.</p><p>“So what, you think you deserve to be punished so you’re going to punish yourself?” she accused, grabbing hold of his face with one hand again and forcing him to meet her eyes.  “You want me to punish you too. Is that it?”</p><p>Gabriel laughed but there wasn’t anything joyful about it. It was a cruel laugh.</p><p>“Think you are up to the challenge, Admiral?  What are you going to do, court marshal me?” he taunted her.</p><p>“Is that what you want?” she played along for the moment.  “You looking to take a nice vacation in the middle of a war? Or were you hoping for something more primitive in terms of punishment?”</p><p>Somewhat teasingly, she brought her free hand down on his backside, smacking it lightly, trying to jolt him out of this ridiculous mindset.</p><p>She didn’t expect him to moan in response, didn’t expect to feel a renewed stirring against her.</p><p>“You do, don’t you?” she said to herself as much as him, as the realization took hold, bringing her hand down a little harder this time and feeling a little thrill of her own as he groaned louder and she could feel him straining against the restraints of the fabric.</p><p>Well, that was new.</p><p>“Yes,” he shuddered, like the sound was being pulled out of him by force, as she did it again, bucking into her and bracing himself against the mirror.</p><p><i>Okay then</i>, she decided,<i> let’s see where this goes.</i>  If he needed this, wanted it, who was she to deny him.  The voice between her own thighs certainly wasn’t objecting.</p><p>“Strip,” she told him, using her command voice, as she ducked under his arm and circled round to stand behind him.  He moved to turn but she put both hands on his shoulders and shook her head, “No. I want you to watch.”</p><p>She enjoyed watching as well. Gabriel had always been gorgeous to her, back when he was a gangly lithe cadet and now when he was a full formed man hitting his middle years.  He knew it too, winked at her in the mirror as he shimmied out of his uniform pants.  </p><p>“Brace yourself again,” she instructed, taking hold of both his hips and pulling them back just slightly so he was bent over a bit. She watched him swallow hard, watched his cock twitch at the order.  </p><p>She made sure he was just how she wanted him positioned, running her fingertips lightly up his thighs and giving his backside a good squeeze before she drew her hand back and struck it again. He stiffened fully, cursing as she brought the backside of her hand down the next time, striking the other cheek.</p><p>“Is this what you want?” she asked again, pausing between each blow, watching his breathing accelerate and the reddening of his skin where her hand was coming down.  </p><p>“Harder,” he grunted, and she obliged, getting caught up in his need. This was nothing they’re ever done before but it was Gabriel and she was Kat and she’d never once found herself balking at something that had brought him pleasure.</p><p>She saw him like this, desperate, needing, as hard as she’s ever seen him and it brought out something in her that answered this feral call.</p><p>She wrapped the hand she wasn’t using to spank him around the base of his cock tugging upwards every time she brought the palm of her hand down on his ass and back down every time it was the backside.</p><p>She kept going, following the lead of his cries of ecstasy, until the first spurt of his release hit the mirror. Jealously, she spun him around, dropping to her knees and swallowing him down as far as she could, ending up with as much cum streaked across her as down her throat.</p><p>Gabriel’s legs started to shake and he tried to push her back (weakly… it’s not like he couldn’t force her away if he chose but he didn’t) but she batted his hands away, pinning them against the wall, and she then went from merely holding his mostly softened cock in her mouth to actually doing something with it, licking and then sucking.</p><p>He shook, legs trembling, sliding down the wall. She followed him down, spreading his knees further apart as she settled between them, continuing to bring his arousal back to life, though he shuddered in overstimulation.</p><p>“Kat…” he groaned, like a prayer, “Kat…”</p><p>She needed to feel him, needed to experience his aliveness.  His trembling thighs quivered under her hands as she ran them up and down, he cock twitched and stirred against her lips.  </p><p>She touched him gently, tenderly, all the sharpness of the earlier violence fading into the way she really wanted to hold him, to treasure him.</p><p>“Why?” he stammered.</p><p>“Because the world wouldn’t be better off without you,” she told him, as she sat up and started undressing. </p><p>“Because I’m glad you’re alive,” she breathed as she lowered herself back down to straddle him.</p><p>“Because you are important to me,” she added, kissing his throat softly as she guided him inside of her.</p><p>“Because you deserve pleasure, and softness, and good things, Gabriel,” she insisted, holding his face in her hands and forcing him to look her in the eyes as she slowly rode him, pressing her whole body against his.</p><p>“You don’t know that,” he deflected, despite the way his arms had wrapped around her. “You don’t know what I deserve.”</p><p>“Yes, I do,” she told him, letting that tone of authority creep back into her voice.  “I know you, Gabriel.  I will always know you.”</p><p>She could have sworn she saw tears forming in his eyes before his mouth met hers and she lost herself in the tangle of their limbs and the mounting pleasure building within her.</p>
<hr/><p>She understands it all too clearly now, when it is too late.  Everything she wanted to attribute to trauma, everything she wanted to believe was a reason to keep fighting for him… it was none of it what she believed.  Maybe she would have seen that, would have seen the immorality where she’d expected unconventionality, cruelty where she’s expected bravado, if she hadn’t been so desperate to hold on to what she’d once had.</p><p>Not seeing the truth had let her believe that she had not lost Gabriel for months after he’d been gone.</p><p>Now though, she knows the truth, knows that trauma didn’t turn Gabriel’s kisses from playful to desperate… well not the trauma she thought. Surely to live in the world that Discovery’s crew describes was to live through constant trauma.  </p><p>Katrina’s thoughts threaten to overwhelm her as much as her body’s response to them does.  </p><p><i>Is this better or worse?</i> she wonders.  <i>Is it better that it wasn’t him who treated me that way? Or is it worse that I wanted to believe it was him so badly I didn’t read any of the warning signs?</i></p><p>She doesn’t have time for this, doesn’t have the luxury of being overwhelmed by this revelation when the Federation is on the brink of being obliterated.  </p><p>She is only human, though, so she stumbles across the quarters that once she thought were his, and collapses in front of the toilet, just barely getting the lid up in time to empty the contents of her stomach within.</p><p>Fortunately it isn’t a lot.  They are all rations these days.</p><p>She promises herself that if they survive this she will seek out appropriate treatment, that she will process the loss of the real Gabriel Lorca and sort out what it means to her to have accepted a twisted substitute in his place without question.</p><p>Right now, though.  Right now she just has to face that he’s really gone, and that means she has to think like both of them, has to execute both parts of their duet instead of just her own line.</p><p>“Okay, Gabriel,” she tells the empty space he’s left behind.  “Let’s hear it. What would you do with the Discovery reappearing here and now? What would you do with this genocidal tyrant with the face of Philippa Georgiou?</p><p>He’s not here, though.  <i>He never was</i>, she reminds herself.</p>
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